[quote name='Bharatvarsh2' date='13 May 2010 - 02:44 AM' timestamp='1273698364' post='106347']
The r and l you mention do not have phoenetic equivalents in English so I don't know how to explain but ra and la are consonants.
There is a long "A" in sanskrit, check the letter right after a it has a line on top of it, that's long A.
I don't know why Sanskrit doesn't have short o's and e's (not long-o). The o and e are pronounced how you would pronounce the long e and o in southern languages so Sanskrit lacks short e's and o's. If you want to write Telugu in the Roman script you write dEsam for country (because there is a short e in Telugu) but in Sanskrit written in Roman script you just write desha. Perhaps the shorter e's and o's were lost similar to how La the retroflex of la is no longer used in Sanskrit but is used in Southern languages.
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svara-s, the vowels, are those sounds that can be produced without a "motion during the sound", that is, by bringing lips/tongue to a particular shape/position, keeping these static there, and producing sound from the throat. Try 'a', then i, then e, etc. all that changes is the shape and opening of the lips. These are simple svara-s. Then there are some svara-s like R^i and LR^i - these too pass this definition. Sound of R^i is different from vya~njana r. in R^i, one curls the tongue upwords to nearly touch the roof of the mouth, keep it there, and then produce sound from the throat. Others like LR^i are similar, only the placement of the tonugue-tip differs. Some other relatives of this sound such as dIrgha R^i and dIrgha LR^i are although still found on devanAgarI table, they are no longer commonly used.
about e/E/ai: saMskR^ita genrally follows shuddha svara-s, but in its deshaja and apabhraMsha relative languages, mixed- or semi-svara-s are also present. one might identify such semi- or compond- svara-s in that they are produced by a slight change in the shape of lips while from the beginning to end there is no other motion. Example is the first sound in the hindi word 'aura' ('and') -- here one first says 'a', then changes the opening and shape of the lips without a pause to say 'o' (and then ra). This kind of semi-svara-s is to be found prevailing in all other deshaja languages too. Whereas in saMskR^ita, what would be more comon is shuddha-svara-s with sound as of the first syllable in 'OShadhi' (different from 'au'). As far as desha/dEsha is concerned, as far as I can see there is no difference in the phonetics of the word between saMskR^ita and telugu, neither of these pronounce e in desha as dIrgha, so I dont know why the ITRAN representation should be any different for the word in the two languages.
The r and l you mention do not have phoenetic equivalents in English so I don't know how to explain but ra and la are consonants.
There is a long "A" in sanskrit, check the letter right after a it has a line on top of it, that's long A.
I don't know why Sanskrit doesn't have short o's and e's (not long-o). The o and e are pronounced how you would pronounce the long e and o in southern languages so Sanskrit lacks short e's and o's. If you want to write Telugu in the Roman script you write dEsam for country (because there is a short e in Telugu) but in Sanskrit written in Roman script you just write desha. Perhaps the shorter e's and o's were lost similar to how La the retroflex of la is no longer used in Sanskrit but is used in Southern languages.
[/quote]
svara-s, the vowels, are those sounds that can be produced without a "motion during the sound", that is, by bringing lips/tongue to a particular shape/position, keeping these static there, and producing sound from the throat. Try 'a', then i, then e, etc. all that changes is the shape and opening of the lips. These are simple svara-s. Then there are some svara-s like R^i and LR^i - these too pass this definition. Sound of R^i is different from vya~njana r. in R^i, one curls the tongue upwords to nearly touch the roof of the mouth, keep it there, and then produce sound from the throat. Others like LR^i are similar, only the placement of the tonugue-tip differs. Some other relatives of this sound such as dIrgha R^i and dIrgha LR^i are although still found on devanAgarI table, they are no longer commonly used.
about e/E/ai: saMskR^ita genrally follows shuddha svara-s, but in its deshaja and apabhraMsha relative languages, mixed- or semi-svara-s are also present. one might identify such semi- or compond- svara-s in that they are produced by a slight change in the shape of lips while from the beginning to end there is no other motion. Example is the first sound in the hindi word 'aura' ('and') -- here one first says 'a', then changes the opening and shape of the lips without a pause to say 'o' (and then ra). This kind of semi-svara-s is to be found prevailing in all other deshaja languages too. Whereas in saMskR^ita, what would be more comon is shuddha-svara-s with sound as of the first syllable in 'OShadhi' (different from 'au'). As far as desha/dEsha is concerned, as far as I can see there is no difference in the phonetics of the word between saMskR^ita and telugu, neither of these pronounce e in desha as dIrgha, so I dont know why the ITRAN representation should be any different for the word in the two languages.